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Topic: Quarry tile spacing in oven (Read 5114 times)

pat-zza

I just used the unglazed quarry tiles this weekend to make some nice crispy browned crust pizza. The tiles seemed to work great but I have a question about the spacing of the tiles. Should the tiles be flush up against each other or should there be a little gap in between to let some heat creep up into the sides? Any suggestions on cleaning the tiles after the big mess? I know at least not to use any soap or detergent.

I use unglazed quarry tiles, and I just butt them up against each other--no spacing. You could go either way with it though. When I had my original tiles, I found them a bit small, so I spaced them out a bit to increase the size my pizza could be.

As far as cleaning goes, I wouldn't even clean it at all. How big a "mess" are you dealing with? It shouldn't be that bad. I only have to deal with some flour that falls onto the tiles; I don't clean it off, the burnt flour actually seems to add some flavour.

--Dave

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Pat

Giotto, I have a gas burner and I heated my oven to 550 for 30 min. to heat up the tiles before I slid in the pizza. I'm not sure how high my oven goes up to. I'll check next time I use it. I'm sorry, I didn't take any pics. I'll remember to do so next time.

Dave, there isn't too big a mess. Just some burnt cheese that fell on the tile when I tried to slide the pizza in with parchment paper. I don't have one of those pizza paddles. Also, some burnt flour and cornmeal that I dusted on the parchment.

I use my wire brush for my grill and smoker to just lighlty brush my stone if I have any build up on the surface. other than that I would not worry about the appearence of your tiles, just like any good cooking surface it will get "seasoned", so to speak, the more you use it.

If you're going to use those tiles, definitely get a pizza peel and ditch the parchment paper. They're cheap from abestkitchen.com.

Also, once you get your peel, you might want to consider using flour instead of cornmeal to prevent sticking. I tried cornmeal and got frustrated having little ball bearings all over the place all the time, so I switched to flour and I'm happy I did Dave

the tiles or pizzastones will eventually get more stained and darker (seasoned) with use. Just brush the loose meal or flour off. Burnt Cheese can be scratched off, but never use soap or other cleaning agents.

While I don't ordinarilly use parchment paper, I know that some people like to use it so that the unbaked pizza doesn't stick to the peel because of tears in the dough (usually undetected) or an overly moist pizza dough. The parchment paper is placed on the peel and a shaped pizza dough is placed on top of the parchment paper and dressed in preparation for depositing the pizza in the oven and onto tiles or a pizza stone (some people also use a dusting agent between the parchment paper and the peel or on top of the parchment paper). To be on the safe side, the parchment paper can be trimmed to a size a little bigger than the unbaked pizza so that the edges of the parchment paper don't burn while the pizza is baking. Some people leave the parchment paper in the oven the whole time the pizza is baking. I think it is better to remove the parchment paper fairly early into baking so that the bottom of the pizza can brown up and become crispy as the moisture from the dough is absorbed by the tiles or stone. When I experimented with using parchment paper, I just opened the oven door and, using standard kitchen tongs, lifted the pizza up just enough to be able to remove the parchment paper with my fingers. You don't want to leave the oven door open too long so that the heat of the oven doesn't escape too much. You also don't want to wait too long to remove the parchment paper because it has a tendency to disintegrate and fall apart when it is subjected to high oven heat. To canadave's point, the drawbacks of using parchment paper should be sufficient incentive to learn how to make pizzas without reliance on parchment paper.

I'm also with canadave on the use of flour rather than cornmeal as a dusting agent for the peel. Cornmeal is the most common dusting agent, and has a nice nutty flavor which many prefer. However, the cornmeal is also susceptible to charring and burning and possibly turning bitter on the pizza bottom when it comes in contact with the hot tiles or stone. It can also make a mess in the oven, requiring periodic cleaning to get rid of the burned remains.

Over time, you will learn that there are many possible choices for a dusting agent, such as white flour, semolina, corn flour, cornmeal, cream meal (which has a granulation between corn flour and cornmeal), cornstarch, wheat bran, rye flour, rice flour, or even fine bread crumbs. With all these choices, I prefer plain old white flour because it doesn't impart another flavor to the crust. But is it all a matter of personal preference. Some people like the added flavor imparted by the particular dusting agent selected.

In looking at pizza peels, you might want to look at both wood and metal pizza peels. Either is acceptable but, having used both, I personally prefer the wooden version because dough doesn't seem to stick to it as readily as a metal peel. A metal peel, however, does make it easier to remove a baked pizza from the tiles or stone because it is much thinner than a wood peel (despite the tapered edges of the wood peel) and slides more easily under the baked pizza to facilitate its removal from the oven. If the added expense is not a problem, you can achieve optimum flexibility by having both types of peels on hand. This is what I have done.

Whichever peel or peels you decide upon, you will want to make sure that you get the right size. That will depend on the size of the surface area of your tiles and the size of the pizza you want to make in relation to that surface area. So, if you decide to make pizzas no greater than 14 inches, for example, and your tiles can accommodate that size, then you will want to look for a peel that has a "blade" (that's the part of the peel that will hold the unbaked pizza) that is at least 14 inches by 15 inches. I use a pizza stone and 14 inches is about the maximum size pizza I can make in my oven while allowing a few inches around the stone for air circulation (which is recommended by the manufacturer of my stone). With tiles, you may be able to get another inch or two increase in pizza size for a standard size home oven, which will necessitate an even larger peel size. I would also recommend that the peel you select have a reasonably long handle--about 8 or 9 inches should do--so that you aren't reaching into a very hot oven with a handle that is too short for the job.

Peter

« Last Edit: October 16, 2009, 11:17:14 AM by Pete-zza »

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pat-zza

I spent 30 minutes trying to clean out the bottom of the oven with those burnt cornmeal ball bearings. I can't wait to try out all the other dough recipes on this website. So far I like the NY Style pizza dough. Is it imperative to refrigerate the dough overnite? Does it add more texture or something?

Pat

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pat-zza

Pete-zza, I didn't know people actually left the dough on the parchment while in the oven. I used the parchment with a flat plate, dusted the parchment with cornmeal and put the dough on top and quickly slid the pizza on the tile while pulling the parchment and the plate. It worked fine but was kind of awkward. Pizza peel is definitely on my shopping list. I'll also use flour next time instead of cornmeal.

I spent 30 minutes trying to clean out the bottom of the oven with those burnt cornmeal ball bearings. I can't wait to try out all the other dough recipes on this website. So far I like the NY Style pizza dough. Is it imperative to refrigerate the dough overnite? Does it add more texture or something?

Pat

I vacuum the burnt bits.

Lately, I have switched from cornmeal to semolina flour. Makes a big difference.

Pizzer Eater

Just brought home 1/2'" thick quarry tiles from Lowes. They are 12" x 12" @ 99 cents per tile and they trimmed them to fit my oven at no cost. I will have 2 full size in front and two 5" x 12" in the rear. I'll be giving them a heat test tonight.

I also just won a new copy of American Pie by Peter Reinhart on eBay for $8.00 plus $2.42 shipping. I'm looking forward to some good reading.

I'm still looking for hi-gluten flour locally. It looks like I will have to settle for one of the various bread machine flours or get the big bag of hi-gluten from Sam's Club.

I gave up trying to find a reasonably priced pizza peel locally. Even the restaurant supply houses are 2 to 3 times the price of instawares.com so I'm placing an order with them.

Ideally, I'd love to use Golda's Kitchen (since it is one of the few Canadian online housewares sites), but every time I've ever needed anything, they never seem to carry it. Abestkitchen had pretty good shipping rates from the US to Canada (I think they're based in Syracuse, NY), and have a huge selection of stuff, and a clean, easy-to-use website. I was very happy buying my pizza peel from them. They're pretty well-known, a bunch of other people on this board have ordered stuff from them, as I recall.